A Man Of Many Faces
by shadow243ali
Summary: Patrick Jane was a man of many faces.' Oneshot, Jane-centric.


**AN: This is my first mentalist fic. I've just started watching it so I've only seen a few eps so far, but I really like the show. So, in light of seeing the show, I've decided to write a piece of fanfiction about Patrick Jane because his character is so interessting. Plus Simon Baker has a smile that is infectious...it actually makes me smile...weird. Anyway, on with the story...**

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Patrick Jane was a man of many faces.

He had once been seen as a psychic; to some a comfort in reaching across the divides between life and afterlife, giving messages of hope…love…peace…all false in their meaning but to those who paid him, he never expected them to find out the truth. And they never would've known the truth had it not been for the one who saw him as a leech. The same man who Patrick had disrespected openly, publicly and without reservation or fear the name of a serial killer – Red John.

It was with the death of his wife and child that Patrick Jane's face changed once more.

Plunging into despair and depression, his grief overwhelmed him and the mind he had trained so well in picking up messages in people's actions, the brain that had made him famous, the knowledge he had flaunted and opinions he had made had come from his mind; the same ones that had led to the death of the people he had loved had finally broken down because it could no longer handle the grief, the pressure, the pain…

And so, it was of no great surprise that when Patrick Jane found himself locked up in a mental asylum after having a mental breakdown, he did not try to fight the image now painted of him. In fact he tried not to do much to break out of his newly found prison because in the depth of Patrick Jane's mind, the small part that was still alive to the world came to think that this was his punishment. It had been his fault; he had brought death upon his wife and child. It may not have been by his hands but his words had brought that _monster_ into his home.

And so with this realisation, Patrick Jane prepared himself to stay in his self-made prison, branded as mentally unresponsive due to the traumatic experience that the death of his wife and child had done to him. For he had no reason to live a free life, a happy life, a purposeful life now that the reason for living had left him without a purpose, without meaning, without hope and no matter how he claimed to reach out between the living and the dead, no amount of reaching would ever bring back his wife and child.

And Patrick Jane would've stayed as he was – the man with a fading face had it not been for Sophie, his psychiatrist who urged him to fight to live, to get better and without knowing it, to fight for revenge.

And so the new face of Patrick Jane was born, gone now was the slick backed hair of his fake psychic days; in their place were his natural curls. The snazzy eyesore suits expected of him back in the public limelight were now just three-piece suits. His cocky brash attitude had been humbled but he was still confident, still suave, still intelligent and so he found that he would not try to hide it.

Yet to the world Patrick Jane was now known as a fake psychic, but he was also a man reborn from the ashes of destruction.

Being brought into the CBI helped him find a purpose, he helped catch murders with his talents of acute observation and with each person locked up behind bars, he began to feel a bit less lost in life; at least until he went home to find that smiling red face staring back at him. He could not bring himself to get rid of it, for it was a symbol of everything he had lost and everything he intended to do to the man who had placed it there.

And so every night he attempted to sleep – an act he never got much of because of the nightmares that plagued his unconscious – he stared at that blood red smile and prepared himself for the day he would be seen as the face of a murderer.

He tried not to think of his colleagues at the CBI, not of Lisbon, who seemed to be the only one who could see past his façade, or of Cho, the closest thing to a right hand man he had, or Van Pelt, still willing to believe in psychics and the supernatural even when he had been living proof in their dismissal, or even Rigsby, still unwilling to admit he was in love with Grace. He tried not to think of these people, because if he did, he would see their faces after he had gotten his revenge and he would feel guilt for making them lose respect in him. And if he were honest, those looks would hurt him more than they should once the time came.

Patrick Jane was a man of many faces; he played each one to perfection but one day, on the day he would get his revenge – the day that his inner darkness would be revealed to the world – not even Patrick Jane would know of his real face.

**AN: Hopefully, that stayed true to the show but if it didn't then remember that I haven't seen a lot of the episodes yet. Ok, review if you enjoyed...**


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